The Fate of Grom
by SuperMudz
Summary: A Warcraft short narrative story (covering some of the events of the game). One-shot.


**THE FATE OF GROM**

_AN ORC STORY_

by SuperMudz

* * *

"Dammit, Grom."

He was attacking before he was properly prepared, Thrall could see that.

"Forward, my warriors!" He had to get in there quickly, before Grom brought the humans down on them all. It would be a tight battle – they were surrounded on all sides.

If he knew the humans, they'd be bringing out their phalanxes now, with their long pikes. He did not have trolls with throwing axes with him this time – but he did have the headhunters, and other methods. Out of the darkness, and the trees, the wolves came. Howling as they appeared. The humans were visibly disturbed, their ranks jostling. They didn't want to be hamstrung from behind by attacking wolves – no doubt it confused them.

When they saw Orc warriors on the backs of those wolves, they would understand – but too late.

Still, Grom was a peerless warrior, and he was slaying the enemy well, Thrall noted. But he would quickly fall if Thrall did not assist him, and then Thrall would have to face an alerted enemy alone. "War is for fools being friends," he quoted. He had read that once, in a house long ago, when he was still a slave of the humans. He had gained much, learned much in that time. And now he was Warchief of the Horde – few even remembered how he had began, although he bore the name like a scar.

Thrall had a fierce love of knowledge, inculcated in him ever since he had been a slave for human, raised by Blackmoore since a child, if you could call it that - it was the only thing that might have shown him how to win his freedom. Besides his education, there were libraries and books there, whilst eluding Blackmoore's suspicions. He smiled – maybe the human would have been proud his dreams were being realised, in a way, if it were not ironic. Thrall had taken the punishment, and the knowledge – and he had escaped to find an army – and Grom Hellscream.

And knowledge was the only thing that would bring them victory against an enemy so well supplied and strong. He had sent his scouts early that morning, feeling that Hellscream might attempt something foolish. But he had never anticipated that lust for battle itself would overtake his senses so.

If only Grom had remembered – his hate for the humans ran deep, but it was Thrall that commanded.

He gave the signal for attack.

(*)

"The battle was impossible, Thrall – I had… no choice." He examined his fore-arm, only now, after the battle-lust had ceased, though fire still burned in his veins, did he had time to think, and perhaps… regret.

Though it had seemed time and again he had defeated him, the demi-god continued to elude destruction, he came out of the forest time and time again, and laid waste to his forces. Many orc bodies still littered these forests alongside the strange tall elves.

"My warriors were dying, Thrall, what would you have had me do?"

Thrall's first answer would have been that he should have pulled his forces back, but Grom knew he would never have accepted it. He would have preferred death. And so he had taken the only path for victory he had seen – plunging him people back into the slavery the Orcs had just so narrowly escaped from the demons. Drinking the blood of their fiery leader who had led Orcs in chains upon the darkest war between the human and Orc worlds, led by their insatiable demons, and the Orcs just as insatiable beside them in battle.

To think Thrall had sent him here as punishment.

He shook his head. Thrall would deny them their very heritage – he was not fit to lead.

(*)

* * *

CAIRNE

* * *

The pinkskins were small but brave. Cairne nodded with respect as the creature fell back to the ground, to be embraced by the Earthmother once again.

Few creatures were as attuned to her as Cairne – once, it had granted him life again, to continue watching over his people. And his flesh would not fail so long as it continued to be in his heart, until the day came to put down his burdens.

The strength of his brothers was too much for his hastily raised shield.

He "hmm'ed" to himself, thinking of all Thrall had told him of this people. Not particularly large or doughty, as they reckoned things, but with a hardy spirit, and keen eye and intelligence, they wrought iron to be their strength and their weapons. Such a heavy burden for such a little people.

In his mind, "little" was not a derogatory term. Cairne was one with the bugs and the rodents that populated the plains, as much as the might and sinew of the tauren, or the noble strength of the kodo.

Nonetheless, it did well to think on one's burdens. The warrior had died nobly.

Unexpectedly, he had run into something even mightier than he. A strange being, hewn of non-living stones and metals, guarded this way. Grasping the haft of his axe, he gave it his mightiest blow. It barely moved from an attack that could have shifted a mountain at its base.

"Together, my warriors!" And truly, a match of might was joined in that moment – inendurable muscle hardened by the plains, against inexorable stone with unintelligible will to crush and smite. They were as tough as stone, but truly, they were being tested. He found a moment for whimsy, truly the Earthmother had strange ways of testing her children. He believed that winning the young chieftain's way to the Oracle, and the answers he sought, was worthy. He saw much greatness in the young warrior's heart.

In the end, he was victorious, but it was a much greater struggle than he had imagined. T'would have been easier to carry one of their great totems, he had thought, one that took the entire tribe of tauren to put into place with sufficient size and honour.

He wiped the strange rocks off the blade, and the unliving warriors settled back onto the floor, all the enchantment gone from them. The hollows of their eyes were dead and empty now, whereas before they had surprised them with life.

Strange things lived here indeed, his words echoed back to him, as if he had shouted the words into these caves and it had only just now returned. He chuckled to himself at his whimsy. Then he sighed with a great snort, and motioned to his warriors. They would press on.

(*)

_If we slay a god, are we not gods ourselves, Thrall?_

They stood together, on that windy fiery peak. Thrall waited to see which way the demons' would take his madness. There was a flash like lightning, and suddenly, with eyes wide, he saw Grom leaping toward him, impossibly high, axe raised to smite him. Had it struck, it surely would have cleaved him in two on his mount, Doomhammer's armour or no.

He raised the gem forward and high, enchanted by the sorceress who called herself Jaina, and there was another flash, but this time this was no strike afterward.

(*)

It was warm in his saddle, he mused sadly, as he made the descent once more.

"Hellscream. You're coming home."

THE END


End file.
